


Maybe This Time

by rilla



Category: One Direction (Band), Zayn Malik (Musician)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-12
Updated: 2017-05-12
Packaged: 2018-10-31 02:35:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10889883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rilla/pseuds/rilla
Summary: a brief au in which zayn is a writer, and they fell in love when they were teenagers. this is set years after that and is mostly angst, intimacy, and sex.





	Maybe This Time

**Author's Note:**

> the title was originally taken from from the dining table, but then this one seemed to fit better. pls listen to maybe this time from cabaret :)

Harry shows up on a Tuesday morning in August. Outside the air is thick and heavy and grey in that way that only London air can be in the summer, full of smog and pollution and dirt that lingers on your skin even after you’ve tried to wash it off. He’s lit around the edges like someone’s taken a cigarette lighter to a sheet of paper and as he looks into Zayn’s face he swallows, a slick crack, as though he wasn’t expecting to see him in the flesh.

“I thought—” he begins, and stops.

“That I was in America? No.” Zayn’s heart is pounding so hard that he’s worried Harry can see his pulse in his throat. “I came home.”

“When?”

“Last week. Does it matter?” Zayn doesn’t know why Harry came to visit him when he thought he might not even be there, but he supposes that’s typical of them.

“I suppose not.” Harry shakes his head, flicks one of his curls off his forehead in the way he always had. “Can I come in?”

Zayn lets him, of course. He always did. Harry has always been his weakness. They met at sixth form, when they were both almost seventeen. Sat together in English class and for a while – Zayn remembers saying this at the time, in his naiveté – that was that. Love, in an easy and uncomplicated way. Winter afternoons spent sprawled on Harry’s bed. Zayn trailed fingertips up his ribs and down over his hipbone and then over the soft flesh of his belly, making him laugh and curl up like a bug on its back. And then university and then real life, and in the middle of those things a separation. Fleeting contact in the years since, but not much. It felt as though it was too much and not enough at the same time, a sort of exquisite pain that in hindsight Zayn is pretty sure would have killed him if he’d let it.

When Harry’s in the hallway, bending down to shuffle off his shoes, Zayn reaches out for his wrist and pulls Harry almost off balance. His left hand, the etching of the cluster of stars between his thumb and his forefinger and on the fourth finger – “No ring,” Zayn says.

Harry smiles, unsteady and not quite happy. “Why do you think I’m here?”

“I’ve always loved being your second choice.” Zayn drops Harry’s hand and sees him pull it back as though he’s been burned. The kitchen is at the end of the hallway and Zayn doesn’t watch to see if Harry’s following him. He always has, he always did. 

“You aren’t my second choice.” Socked footsteps padding after Zayn, like he knew they would. “You’re—”

That pain again, blinding and heartsick. Zayn says, sounding weaker than he’d like to, “Please don’t.” No one else has ever had the power to hurt him like Harry did. He hopes they never do.

Harry shrugs a shoulder. In the kitchen they stand at opposite ends as though they’re in a boxing ring, as the kettle boils behind Zayn’s shoulder. “Two sugars?” Zayn asks him.

“Just milk now,” Harry says.

“You’ve changed,” Zayn tells him darkly, and from the quirk of his eyebrow he can tell that Harry’s not sure how serious he is. That’s fair, because Zayn isn’t either. He turns around and throws teabags into mugs, adds a splash of milk to both – and a splash of milk extra to Harry’s, because he’s passive aggressive when he wants to be. When he turns back Harry’s halfway across the kitchen towards him, eyes intent on Zayn and something in them that makes Zayn’s stomach clench up. “What?” he says, too sharply. When he looks at Harry’s hands he realises they’re outstretched in a clumsy sort of way, as though he’s reaching for Zayn but doesn’t quite know how to touch him. The ways that they knew each other and no longer do will always be hell. 

“I just,” Harry says, and his hands clench ineffectively before falling to his sides. When Zayn picks up the tea mugs they rattle in his grip as he crosses to clatter them down onto the table. When they seat themselves he can still feel the heaviness of Harry’s gaze on him, as enveloping as the thick clouds outside. After a moment he says: “How was America?”

Zayn shrugs a shoulder. “It was fine. It was America.”

“America tends to be America,” Harry says, fake-wise and half-sweet in that way that makes Zayn feel affectionate despite himself. He folds those feelings down like he’s trying to cram a bulky jacket into a suitcase. There’s a moment that hangs between them and then Harry says: “What were you doing there?”

“Work,” Zayn says, and then wants to bite the word back because it seems so obvious and so stupid. “I mean: I had a book tour. I went to a few different cities, did some signings…”

“And they went well?”

Zayn shrugs a shoulder. “There were people there.”

Harry smiles and runs a finger around the rim of his mug. “Good.” His smile flickers. “You know, I read the book. Was it about—”

“Don’t underestimate me, Harry.” Zayn’s voice is snappier than he intended. “I write _fiction_ , it wasn’t about – it wasn’t about –”

“I understand,” Harry says, too quickly. His eyes are down now, on the table. Zayn suddenly wishes that he’d had a chance to wash away the mug-rings on there, the crumbs from his breakfast this morning and, if he’s honest, from breakfast the previous couple of mornings too. He can tell that Harry’s mind isn’t really there though, that he’s drifted somewhere else entirely. Zayn envies the way he’s always been able to do that, to frown and to not be there for a moment, to split himself off from reality. Zayn’s always been too far wedged in the present to do that and although smoking helps to slow his racing heart sometimes, it’s still never easy.

Harry looks up then, sharply. His eyes meet Zayn’s, as arresting as sea-green could ever get. “Don’t you want to know about Taylor?”

Zayn knows all about Taylor. She’s tall and slim and blonde and blue-eyed and Harry loved her enough to marry her, even if it wasn’t forever. He says concisely: “No.”

“Fine.” Harry’s bottom lip pouts out in that way he always had. Zayn hates the fact that almost everything Harry does is familiar to him, because that probably means that Zayn himself is just as predictable to Harry. He wishes he could hide himself away and become some sort of impeachable fortress but the way that Harry’s looking at him is making the back of his neck heat up. 

He gets up quickly and picks up his mug, even though he’s barely had any of his tea. He throws the still-hot liquid in the sink with a splatter of brown and turns back to Harry, his hands gripping the worktop behind himself as though there’s a chance it’ll hold him up. “Harry,” he says, and he wishes he sounded stronger than he actually does although maybe it’s a good thing, maybe Harry will feel sorry for him and leave, maybe the cycle will be finally broken. “Harry,” he says again, “I just – this is too complicated for me. I don’t – I can’t keep doing this…”

Harry’s on his feet now, all desperate jerky movements, halfway across the kitchen like before and then all the way there, so close that Zayn can almost feel the heat of his body. “Listen, I’m not – you know.” He touches the place on his left hand where his wedding ring was. “I just…” He reaches out for Zayn again and this time his hands land, warm and big and too familiar, on Zayn’s chest, fingertips on his collar, grasping and wanting. “Can I—” he says, and Zayn wants to say no but this is inevitable, they are inevitable, they have always been inevitable. He turns his face to Harry’s and finds his mouth in what feels like an exhalation and an inhalation at the same time; breaking his face above the water and learning how to breathe again and drowning all at the same time. This is what his body was born for. He can feel himself shaking against Harry like the very first time they ever kissed, in the hallway outside his room in his mum’s house, where Harry caught onto his wrist and looked into his eyes with such a soft and steadfast gaze that Zayn felt dizzied at the knowledge of what was to happen between them.

He’s dizzy now for similar reasons, his knee jerking and knocking into Harry’s, the rings on his hand getting caught in Harry’s messy hair when he touches it. Harry almost yelps and then laughs, a soft burr against Zayn’s mouth like a thorn against silk, and Zayn takes that noise and makes it part of himself, a drop of sunshine for when he needs it the most. The summers are grey in London, after all, and his house is sometimes a lonely place. The worktop cuts into his back, the bottom of his spine, and he finds that his hands are on Harry’s chest, fumbling at the buttons on his shirt. The skin below is warm silk, a soft sparse scatter of hair. The ridge of his nipple and the catch of his breath as Zayn rubs his thumb over it. He remembers what this was always like. The way Harry’s teeth catch at Zayn’s bottom lip the way he always liked means that he remembers too.

Harry’s mouth moves to his neck then. A scratch of teeth and then his lips like an apology and his hands on Zayn’s arse, fingers tight and then easing the pressure, their hips sliding together. “I missed this,” Harry sighs against his collarbone, and Zayn hopes that Harry didn’t feel the way his heart clenched at that. Harry’s hair is against the side of his face, more fragrant than he expected, and he turns his head and buries his nose in it. The scent of his scalp is something more distinct than shampoo, more personal; it’s the smell of the pillows in Harry’s bed when they were teenagers, it’s the hats that Zayn borrowed from him and inevitably lost, it’s their bodies lying tangled together in sunlight on those mornings that were always more beautiful than Zayn gave them credit for at the time. _I missed you_ , Zayn manages not to say, wanting to knot his hands in Harry’s shirt to keep him there. He can feel his throat tightening as though he’s about to weep.

Harry cleverly distracts him by dropping to his knees and smiling up at him, bright and clear as though Zayn’s his teacher and Harry’s his best student. Zayn reaches out and touches the pink of Harry’s lower lip with his thumb, pulling it down, pressing the bow of his upper lip too. The skin is slightly dry and somehow that makes him more human, makes Zayn want him even more. Harry unzips Zayn’s jeans and rests his hands on the black lines of his boxers still on his hips, leans forward as though he’s about to press his cheek against Zayn’s dick like it’s something he loves. Harry looks as though he’s experiencing some kind of homecoming, and it’s beautiful, and Zayn applauds him for it. He’d probably applaud him more if Harry took his dick out of his boxers and starts to suck it, but nothing in life is perfect.

It’s as if he knows. Harry unfurls Zayn’s boxers from his hips carefully, pushing them down his thighs, and Zayn hears himself make a noise deep in his throat as Harry fists his cock, his touch sure and certain. He moves his mouth to the base, kissing it, messy and open-mouthed, pressing his nose into Zayn’s pubic hair, other hand reaching up to cradle his balls, his touch assured. It’s so strange that they still know what they’re doing after so long. Zayn’s hands are shaking; he touches the silky lock of hair falling over Harry’s forehead and the sharp pale line of his cheekbone and the faint freckle on his temple, and then when Harry pulls away and sinks down abruptly to take in as much of Zayn’s cock as he can, Zayn feels his fingers tighten hard in Harry’s hair, reflexive as his mouth twists and he lets out a noise that he hasn’t heard himself make in a while. Usually he holds that stuff back when he’s with other men, other women, other people; but he’s never been more himself than he is when he’s naked with Harry, and although walls are always necessary, this is nothing new between them, this is nothing that Harry can take from him.

Harry hums, low and vibrating, his throat working, and Zayn lets his fingertips wander lightly over the bulge of his own cock in Harry’s cheek. The way Harry’s lashes cast shadows is beautiful, spiky and half-vulnerable. The half-moon of bare skin behind his ear, the pale slender nape of his neck, the knot of bone at the base of it. The tenderness of it is almost too much but Harry moves his tongue in a way that blots everything out of Zayn’s vision, a momentary crush of white in front of his eyes. A harsh, guttural noise is pulled out of his throat and he comes like a punch in the gut, hard and sudden, and Harry takes it, takes it, takes it, swallows, Zayn’s thumb on the soft fair hairs on his temple.

His knees are weak then and he sinks down to join Harry. He cradles the back of his neck with a shaking hand and finds his mouth one more time, kisses a tiny pearl bead of come off its corner and presses the side of his face against Harry’s so he can suck in a couple of long breaths, the planes of their cheekbones bumping together. “Zayn, I,” Harry begins, and Zayn can’t do it so he kisses him again instead. He kisses him with a steadying hand knotted in his hair and the other on his belt, fumbling and somehow successful as he makes his way into Harry’s jeans, finds the hard silky length of his cock. Harry thrusts five times into Zayn’s hand and then there’s the hot wetness of come on Zayn’s fingers and Harry’s nose screwed up in a way that makes him feel bare, terrible desperation to kiss him, to keep him. “Baby,” Harry breathes, which is something that he never said before and that feels strangely jarring as a result. Zayn presses his sweat-damp forehead against Harry’s temple and touches his lips to Harry’s soft-stubbled cheek and closes his eyes until the world stops spinning around them.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! comments and kudos are always appreciated :)


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